MAC’60s Chapter 83.1

The root of Xie Yuejin’s downfall could be traced back to a few days earlier.

Ever since Xu Shuang packed up his things and went back to the brigade for the winter, Xie Yuejin and Wan Guodong had already started making plans for this year.

Unlike last year, this year things were much more convenient since Xie Yuejin was in charge of procurement.

In the storeroom were the dried vegetables Xu Shuang had stockpiled over the past two months, but aside from those, there wasn’t much else. Xie Yuejin first bought a cartload of winter cabbages, then spent all of the shop’s grain quota, and afterward purchased dry goods such as vermicelli, black fungus, and dried bean curd sticks.

Being cautious in his dealings, Xie Yuejin truly bought every item and brought them back. In the eyes of the townspeople, this meant that the state-run restaurant was no different from past years, operating just the same as usual. Hadn’t it always been like this before? Buying and hoarding large bundles of supplies?

It wasn’t until the twelfth lunar month that Xie Yuejin finally began to act.

With last year’s experience to draw from, this year Wan Guodong simply gave the waiters an early holiday, saying that wages would still be paid, plus a New Year’s gift. He reminded them to have a good time celebrating at home, and once they were back, to know what should and should not be spoken of.

The waiters all had different thoughts. Some truly regretted that last year they had been tempted by just a little bit of ease, only to end up on a thief’s boat. Some, however, were darting their eyes around, already thinking about how to latch onto Xie Yuejin and Wan Guodong. If working for a whole year still wasn’t enough for them, and this year they had even sent Xu Shuang away so early, that showed there was quite a lot of profit involved. If they could get a share as well, wouldn’t their own days be much easier?

Once everyone had been dismissed, Xie Yuejin finally started down the same old path as last year. Every few days, he would close the doors, and occasionally open up to sell a couple of pots of braised goods.

After last year, the townspeople had grown used to this. After all, people had asked before, and Xie Yuejin could respond without a blush or a stammer, saying that the restaurant didn’t have all the necessary ingredients, that some dishes simply couldn’t be made, or that supplies were limited and had already sold out. “Please come earlier next time,” he would say.

In this way, Xie Yuejin fooled everyone, even keeping his parents and brothers who lingered in town in the dark. All he wanted was to hand over the three hundred yuan to the Li family as soon as possible, so he could quickly divorce Li Ying.

Just as Xie Yuejin was fervently making money, the Li family could no longer sit still.

At home, the Li family’s second son was banging and crashing about:
“That bastard—does he really not want Yingzi anymore? It’s been so long! Why hasn’t he come to take Yingzi back yet? Fourth, what you said before wasn’t like this at all!”

The eldest son of the Li family also looked worried:
“Exactly. Fourth, you said before that even if Xie Yuejin found out, he would just have to pinch his nose and keep going. Getting divorced isn’t a good reputation to have. Our family has already had three divorces, and if Yingzi adds to that… Even if we go back to the countryside, our days won’t be easy.”

Originally, they could still have gone back to the old house in the countryside and sold the house in town. Although there weren’t many buyers, if the price was lowered, someone would still want it. They might not get much, but five or six hundred was still possible.

By then, they could split the money, return to the countryside, and each build their own house to live in. If they found a marriage prospect for Li Ying with a high bride price, they would also have some ready cash, and the whole family could still live decently.

It was Li Laosi who had egged them on, saying there was no need to go back to the countryside. As long as they clung to Xie Yuejin in town, the family’s living conditions wouldn’t change. In fact, they might even get better.

They had even said that even if Xie Yuejin found out Li Ying had tricked him into marriage, he still wouldn’t divorce her, and in the end he would just have to pinch his nose and keep living together.

But no matter how they calculated, who could have guessed that this wretch Xie Yuejin turned out to be the real swindler!

What master chef of a restaurant, what having been allocated a house, what estrangement from his parents—all of that was just lies he told to deceive Li Ying!

And not only that, Xie Yuejin had actually thrown everything aside and outright demanded a divorce from Li Ying.

The eldest Li brother wore a face full of sorrow:
“All the men in our family have divorced, and now if Yingzi, a woman, gets divorced too, once we go back to the countryside, people will surely point fingers at us.”

Wasn’t that the truth? Divorce was still such a rare thing nowadays, and the Li family would suddenly have four cases at once. Wouldn’t that make them a laughingstock?

The eldest brother continued, “And besides, we don’t have much grain left.”

The grain in the house was still what Xie Yuejin had brought over before marrying Li Ying, in order to show he was fulfilling his duty as a son-in-law. After this long, most of it had already been eaten. By last month they had already been at risk of running out, and lately they were only scraping by, buying a little and eating a little each time.

“If we don’t come up with something soon, how are we supposed to keep living?”

The second Li brother, a hot-tempered man, slammed the table:
“If it comes down to it, we’ll just beat Xie Yuejin up. After that, we’ll leave Yingzi with him, sell the house, and go back to the countryside!”

The fourth Li brother kept quiet, but his wife, seeing how the second was talking, hurried to smooth things over:
“Second Brother, how could you just go and beat up Xie Yuejin? Right now Yingzi is married to him legally, and who knows what the future might bring? If you beat him up, how is Yingzi supposed to live with him after that?”

The fourth brother’s wife did her utmost to persuade the second brother to give up that idea. Her own husband had already told her that they had gone behind the backs of his two older brothers to demand three hundred yuan from Xie Yuejin, while telling Li Ying it was only fifty. This money was hidden from the whole family. Once they got it, the couple would take that and a share of the money from selling the house, and together they would just barely have enough to buy jobs in the city.

The fourth brother’s wife worked hard to placate the two elder brothers, hoping only to quietly receive the three hundred yuan and then coax the family into selling the house so she and her husband could leave.

“Besides,” she added, “if it weren’t for what Second Brother said at the wedding that time… Yingzi wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

Since Fourth Brother himself would never bring it up, his wife could only take the initiative to remind the second. If it hadn’t been for that reckless remark he made at the wedding, how would things have gotten to this point?

The second brother’s face immediately darkened:
“What do you mean by that? Fourth, control your wife!”

Sure, he had said the wrong thing, but when men spoke, what right did women have to interrupt? And now this woman even dared to criticize him!

The fourth brother’s wife pursed her lips and said nothing more, while Fourth Brother picked up the thread:
“Second Brother, I don’t think beating up Xie Yuejin will work. You saw him last time, right? As soon as we mentioned divorce, he talked about applying for an annulment of the marriage. If you beat him, he’ll definitely report you, and then you might even end up in prison.”

The moment prison was mentioned, the second brother also fell silent.

The memory of being locked up before was still too vivid, and just thinking about it made him feel miserable.

Fourth Brother said, “How about this… I’ll go talk to him later. Divorce or not, the fact is they haven’t separated yet. It’s not too much to ask for a little grain, is it? After all, Yingzi is still his wife on paper. As the old saying goes, ‘One day as husband and wife, a hundred days of kindness.’ Surely Xie Yuejin would give us some grain for Yingzi’s sake.”

Fourth Brother had already made up his mind: he would drag things out.

Drag things out until Xie Yuejin handed over the three hundred yuan. By then, he would shove his two older brothers back to the countryside.

What a joke—his plan was to get himself into the city. He had no intention of bringing along his two useless elder brothers, let alone that whole string of nieces and nephews.

Li Laosi’s suggestion won everyone’s approval, and without delay, he went off to find Xie Yuejin.

But behind him, Second Brother Li and Eldest Brother Li did not disperse. The two of them stayed together, sighing heavily.

Second Brother Li was a little unconvinced:
“Big Brother, tell me, isn’t it too spineless if we don’t even give Xie Yuejin a good beating?”

Eldest Brother Li said,
“You want to hit him? If you beat him, you’ll have to sit in prison. If you’re not afraid, then go ahead!”

Second Brother Li protested,
“But with Yingzi being tossed around like this, how is she supposed to get married in the future? We had everything planned out nicely, and then he suddenly wrecked it all—doesn’t that count for anything?”

Eldest Brother Li was stifled with anger too, but when he heard the voices of his own children outside, he felt powerless:
“Before you do anything, think about the children. If we end up back inside again, what will happen to the kids at home?”

At the mention of the children, Second Brother Li deflated. There was nothing to be done—once you had kids, you couldn’t let yourself get dragged down again. It was one thing for Third Brother to have ended up in prison—he didn’t have a son or daughter, so going in didn’t matter. But as for himself, with several children, how could he let their mother run off and their father land in jail too?

Still, the anger swelling in his chest made it impossible for Second Brother Li to swallow it down.

“Big Brother, what if we go and report Xie Yuejin instead?”

Eldest Brother Li nearly fell off his stool:
“What are you saying! Report him for what?”

Second Brother Li said,
“If we can’t beat him, and we can’t do anything else to him, then how am I supposed to swallow my anger? Just look at him—how is it that Xie Yuejin has so much money? He’s just a kitchen hand, why should he have that much money? His family wasn’t wealthy either, so why is it that he can afford to support a whole household?”

The more he spoke, the more Second Brother Li felt he was making sense:
“You heard what his family said, didn’t you? He even sends money back home every month. On top of that, he has to pay rent. Altogether, he hasn’t even been working for that many years—so how could he suddenly have enough money to throw such a big wedding banquet?”

Second Brother Li’s eyes lit up:
“He must have embezzled! He’s working at the restaurant, who knows how much he’s skimmed off!”

At first, Eldest Brother Li thought his younger brother’s words were going too far. After all, he himself had been a factory worker, and matters of reporting people always felt dishonorable. But after listening to Second Brother’s fierce analysis, he started to feel that maybe his younger brother had a point.

When Li Ying was dating Xie Yuejin, she often went to the restaurant to eat without paying. If one really looked into it, it was clear that Xie Yuejin had taken plenty of advantage of public property.

“You know… what you said does make sense…”

Second Brother Li was practically beside himself with excitement.

Eldest Brother Li said:
“Then how about this—we don’t go to the Revolutionary Committee, we just bring it up directly with his restaurant leaders?”

Going to the Revolutionary Committee would mean making an enemy of him. Although Eldest Brother Li didn’t care much for Li Ying, he still felt that if she didn’t end up divorcing, at least she would be able to go on living with Xie Yuejin.

Second Brother Li thought it over and said:
“Alright then, in a couple of days I’ll go to the county. Aren’t all the state-run restaurants part of the same system? I’ll write up a report and send it to the county’s state-run restaurant.”

Second Brother Li was, without question, someone whose actions ran ahead of his brain. Thinking back to how Fourth Brother had tried so hard to obstruct him at the family meeting, he didn’t bother to discuss it with him again, but instead went straight to toss the letter of accusation at the entrance of the county’s state-run restaurant.

After throwing the letter, Second Brother Li returned home with his whole body feeling refreshed and at ease.

But over in the county, whether or not they had actually received the letter was unclear, because no one came to handle the matter.

It wasn’t until after the New Year that an internal inspection team from the restaurant system arrived at Nanshao Town.

The man leading them wore glasses. After arriving in town, he divided the group: two people went around to various places in town to ask about the state-run restaurant’s performance over the past two years, while the man with glasses brought one person with him directly to the state-run restaurant.

But upon arrival, the man with glasses didn’t even go inside.

The restaurant, hanging its signboard for Xipo Town State-run Restaurant, was tightly shut, doors and windows closed, not open for business.

The person accompanying him asked:
“Director Zhang, what should we do? Why don’t you head back first, and we’ll stay behind?”

This inspection team usually rotated through all the restaurants for checks. In past years, the timing was chosen at random, or inspections were done quarterly. Normally, this year’s first inspections should have started in March—after all, trudging around in the dead of winter wasn’t really a task for people.

But this time, the county’s state-run restaurant had reported an anonymous letter, the first in years. It stated only that “Xipo Town State-run Restaurant worker Xie Yuejin was stealing from public property.” Nothing else—no context, no details, just a dry sheet of paper.

The accompanying staff didn’t really understand why Director Zhang insisted on making the trip for this.

Director Zhang said,
“I’m not leaving. I’ll stay and see for myself.”

As he spoke, he wrote a note in the notebook he carried.

A state-run restaurant is a public unit. It’s already ten in the morning, and it still hasn’t opened its doors?

Regardless of what might be true about Xie Yuejin, the restaurant’s leadership clearly had a problem.

Director Zhang left the accompanying staff at the restaurant’s entrance and went to the guesthouse to stay.

Others all thought he was making a fuss over nothing. To stir up so much trouble over just one anonymous letter, and to take people out on business right after the New Year—it seemed he must be a bit out of his mind.

But Director Zhang knew very well that the reason he came wasn’t just the anonymous letter. It was also because the revenue of this Xipo Town state-run restaurant was highly irregular.